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By C. L. Shadwell, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College.

Adam de Brome, the actual, though not the titular, founder of Oriel College, was at the beginning of the fourteenth century a well-endowed ecclesiastic, in the service of King Edward the Second. He held the living of Hanworth, Middlesex; he was Chancellor of Durham and Archdeacon of Stow; he held the office of almoner to the King; and in 1320 he was presented by the King to the Rectory of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford.

The College of Walter de Merton had then been in existence nearly half a century; and the type which he had created, a self-governing, independent society of secular students, well lodged and well endowed, was that to which the aims of the struggling foundations of William of Durham, Devorguilla of Balliol, and Bishop Stapeldon were directed. The poor masters established out of William of Durham’s fund, and now beginning to be known as the scholars of University Hall, were still subject to Statutes issued by the University, and had not yet attained to an independent position. It was not till 1340 that the scholars of the Lady Devorguilla were set free from the authority of extraneous Procuratores, and allowed to be governed by a Master of their own choosing. The office of Rector of Stapeldon Hall was an annual one; he was appointed by the scholars from among themselves, or if they disagreed, by the Chancellor of the University, and his principal duties were bursarial. But for the standard set by the completely organised House of Merton, the development of these infant societies might have taken a very different direction.

Adam de Brome appears to have chosen Merton as his model, and his foundation was from the first intended to be styled a College, a title perhaps till then exclusively enjoyed by Merton.[128]

By Letters Patent, dated at Langley, 20th April, 1324, he obtained the royal license to purchase a messuage in Oxford or its suburbs, and therein to establish “quoddam collegium scolarium in diversis scientiis studentium,” to be styled the College of St. Mary in Oxford, with power to acquire lands to the annual value of thirty pounds. In the course of the same year he purchased the advowson of the church of Aberford, in Yorkshire; and, in Oxford, Perilous Hall, in St. Mary Magdalen parish, and Tackley’s Inn in the High Street; and by his charter dated 6th December at Oxford, and confirmed by the King, 20th December, 1324, at Nottingham, he founded his College of scholars “in sacra theologia & arte dialectica studentium,” appointing John de Laughton as their Rector, and assigning to them Tackley’s Inn as their residence. This Society, if it ever came into actual existence at all, lasted only a little more than a twelvemonth; and on the first of January, 1325–6, its possessions were surrendered by Adam de Brome into the King’s hands, as a preliminary to its re-establishment under the King’s name. Edward the Second had already shown an interest in the maintenance of academical students at the sister University; and the scholars whom he supported there were the germ of the institution afterwards developed by his son under the name of King’s Hall. He also founded the Cistercian house at Oxford. He lent himself readily to the suggestion of his Almoner; and by his Letters Patent, dated at Norwich, 21st January, 1325–6, he refounded the College, with Adam de Brome as its head with the title of Provost, restoring the old endowments, further augmented by the grant of the advowson of St. Mary’s. Leave was given to appropriate the church to the use of the College on condition of maintaining four chaplains for the performance of daily service. License was given to take and hold lands in mortmain to the annual value of sixty pounds. The original statutes are dated on the same day as the charter of foundation. By these statutes, nearly all the provisions of which are taken verbatim from the Merton statutes of 1274, the College was to consist of a Provost, and ten scholars to be nominated in the first instance by Adam de Brome, and thereafter to be elected by the whole body. The ten first nominated were to study Theology; those elected in future were to study Arts and Philosophy, until they were allowed to pass to the study of Theology or (to the number of five or six out of ten) of Civil or Canon Law. The Provost was to be chosen by the whole body of scholars from among themselves and presented to the King’s Chancellor for admission. The second officer of the College was the Dean, corresponding to the Sub-Warden at Merton, filling the Provost’s place in his absence, and acting with him at all times in the College government. Provision was made, similar to that at Merton, for the appointment of other subordinate Deans, such as were established elsewhere and in later foundations; this power has however never been exercised, and the Dean of Oriel, alone of all who bear that title, is in power and dignity second only to the head of the College. The scholars were to be chosen from among Bachelors of Arts, without preference for any locality, place of birth, or kindred. Three chapters were to be held in the year, at the same times as those appointed at Merton, Christmas, Easter, and St. Margaret’s day, at which inquiry was to be made into the conduct of the members, and newly elected scholars were to be admitted.

The foundation was now in contemplation of law, complete. The new Society was a corporate body, having a license to hold land, and with a common seal.[129] It probably was at first established either in St. Mary’s Hall, the Manse or Rectory House of St. Mary’s Church, or in Tackley’s Inn, a large messuage in the High Street, on the site now occupied by the house No. 106.

But the College had not long been founded before Adam de Brome perceived that the protection afforded by the King’s name would be insufficient, unless he could also obtain the support of the Bishop of Lincoln, Henry de Burghash. The Bishop’s approbation of the foundation was not given until a new body of statutes had been drafted, differing in many important particulars from the Foundation Statutes, and placing the College under the control not of the Crown but of the Bishop. The Provost when elected is to be presented to the Bishop for approval or confirmation. Only three of the Fellows may be allowed to study Civil or Canon Law, all the rest being required to betake themselves to Theology. The Bishop is everywhere substituted for the King or his Chancellor; his approval is required for alterations in the statutes; the power of interpreting them on the occasion of any dispute is vested in him; and he is constituted the sole and final judge in the removal of a Provost or scholar for misconduct. Prayers are to be said for the Bishop’s father and mother, Robert Lord Burghash and Matilda his wife, his brothers Robert and Stephen, as well as for the King and Adam de Brome; the name of Hugh le Despenser is significantly omitted. These statutes were issued by the College 23rd May, and confirmed by the Bishop 11th June, 1326; the Bishop’s charter approving the foundation was first given on 13th March, but apparently was kept back until the constitution of the College had been settled to his satisfaction, and was only finally granted on 19th May. In the course of the same year the appropriation of the church of St. Mary was approved by the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; and on Adam de Brome’s resignation, the College was duly inducted by the Prior of St. Frideswide (August 10).

By the close of the year the Queen’s party, to which Bishop Burghash belonged, had triumphed over the Despensers, the deposition of the King following in January 1327. The Bishop made use of the favour in which he stood with the new government to obtain some substantial benefits for the College which he had taken under his protection. The advowson of Coleby, Lincolnshire, purchased by Adam de Brome, was secured to the College by a Royal grant, with a view to its ultimate appropriation. The Hospital of St. Bartholomew, near Oxford, and of Royal foundation, was annexed to the College. The maintenance of the almsmen was provided by a charge on the fee farm rent of the city; but the possessions of the Hospital, consisting principally of tenements and rents in Oxford, went to augment the slender endowments of the College.[130] But the most important accession which the institution now received was by the grant of a messuage, called “La Oriole,” the nucleus of the site of the present College buildings. This messuage stood in St. John Baptist’s parish, fronting Schidyard Street and St. John Street, and occupying nearly the whole of the southern half of the present quadrangle; the south-east corner, the site of the present chapel, was not acquired till later. It had anciently been known as Senescal Hall, but had since acquired the name of La Oriole. Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward the First, had granted it to her chaplain and kinsman James of Spain, and the reversion was now (Dec. 1327) conferred upon the College. The life interest was surrendered in 1329, and the Society probably removed there in that year.[131]

The increase in the College revenues since its first establishment was probably the occasion of issuing some further supplementary statutes, 8th December, 1329. The commons or weekly allowance was raised from twelve to fifteen pence a week for each scholar. The stipend of the Provost was increased to ten marks. Ten shillings were allowed to the Dean; five shillings apiece to the two Fellows, “collectores reddituum,” who collected the income derived from the oblations in St. Mary’s Church, and the rents of house and other property in Oxford; five shillings to the collector of the Littlemore tithes; pittances were allowed to the Fellows at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. The Provost was allowed to keep a separate table, and to maintain a private servant. By a more important provision, ex-Fellows were made eligible to the office of Provost. These statutes were confirmed by the Visitor 26th Feb. 1330, and with those of May 1326, by Royal Letters Patent, 18th March, 1330.

The first chapter in the history of the College, recording the birth and establishment of Adam de Brome’s foundation, closes with the Papal Bulls ratifying and confirming the acts of the King and the Bishop, and authorising the appropriation of the three benefices of St. Mary’s, Aberford, and Coleby. These were obtained in answer to a letter of the King, dated 4th December, 1330, in which the design of the foundation is becomingly set forth. In a postscript to this letter the King calls the Pope’s attention to another matter, the inconvenience arising from the frequent occurrence of disturbances in St. Mary’s Church and Churchyard, arising from the gatherings that habitually took place there, and which led to “effusiones sanguinis” within the consecrated precincts, calling for the Bishop’s sentence of reconciliation. This was not always easily to be obtained, the Bishop being engaged elsewhere in his extensive diocese; and the King suggests that the Pope should authorise the Bishop to give a standing commission to the Abbots of Oseney and Rewley to act for him whenever occasion should require, and effect the necessary reconciliation. The Pope, having taken six months to consider this application, issued on the 23rd June, 1331, four separate Bulls, three of which provided for the appropriation to the College of the three churches, and the fourth dealt with the matter last referred to, the use of St. Mary’s Church for secular assemblies, but very differently from the King’s expectations. Instead of acceding to the proposal that a simple and expeditious machinery should be provided for the reconciliation of the Church, on the not unusual occurrence of a riot within its walls, he proceeded to forbid, under penalty of excommunication, the holding of any meetings whatever, “mercationes aliquas emendo vel vendendo seu conventiculas illicitas,” in the church or churchyard. The Bulls authorising the appropriations asked for were promptly put into execution, and the benefices secured to the College, though Aberford did not fall vacant till 1341, and Coleby not till 1346. But the fourth Bull was suffered to lie unemployed in the College custody, until an opportunity[132] arose in which it was thought likely to prove serviceable.

Adam de Brome died 16th June, 1332, on which day his obit. was long observed by the College. By his will, proved in the Mayor of Oxford’s Court, certain houses in Oxford—Moses Hall in Penyferthyng Street, and Bauer Hall in St. Mary Magdalen parish—which he had acquired for the further endowment of his College, were devised to Richard Overton, clerk, his executor. Overton may have been one of the Fellows; at all events he was intimately associated with Adam de Brome in the establishment of the College and in the acquisition of its endowments; and the property now left to him, and other property afterwards acquired, were all ultimately secured to Oriel.

Adam de Brome was succeeded in the Provostship by William de Leverton, Fellow and Master of Arts, unanimously elected by the College, and instituted by the Bishop, 27th June. Leverton died 21st Nov. 1348, and William de Hawkesworth, Doctor in Theology, was elected in his place. The Bishop annulled this election on the ground of informality, and himself appointed Hawkesworth to be Provost by his own authority.[133] Hawkesworth’s tenure of the Provostship was short, and it is chiefly memorable for the part he played in the disputed election to the Chancellorship of the University, which occurred early in 1349. Hawkesworth, who had already acted as the Chancellor’s Commissary, was the candidate of the Northerners, the party with which the College appears throughout to be connected; John Wylliot, Fellow of Merton, was the candidate of the Southerners. On the 19th of March 1349, Hawkesworth, as Chancellor, with his Proctors proceeded to St. Mary’s for the performance of Divine service, and they were there attacked by Wylliot and his party. It was then that Hawkesworth had recourse to the neglected Bull of Pope John XXII., which had hitherto lain unused in the College Treasury. It was now produced and publicly read in the Church, with what immediate result does not appear, though Wylliot’s action was complained of to the King, and a Commission sent to inquire into the matter. Hawkesworth’s death followed soon after, April 8th; he was buried in St. Mary’s, where an inscription still remains to his memory. Before the election of his successor, an order was received from the Bishop, prescribing the procedure to be followed, probably with the object of preventing the irregularities which had vitiated the last election. William de Daventre, who was now chosen, had been an active member of the College for some years; his name occurs frequently in deeds relating to the Oxford property. In 1361 the College found itself rich enough to obtain the King’s license to add to its possessions divers messuages and small pieces of ground in Oxford, which had been accumulating since the foundation, and which were, up to this time, held in the name of members of the society in trust. The earliest roll of College property, the rental for the year 1363–4, was drawn up shortly after the license had been obtained and acted upon; and as a consequence of this increase in their corporate revenues, a new ordinance or statute was issued in 1364, augmenting the weekly commons, and assigning additional stipends to the Provost, and to certain College servants.

Daventre died in June 1373, and was succeeded by John de Colyntre, then one of the Fellows, and for some years past one of its leading members. The entry of his election in the Lincoln Register records the names of the electing Fellows, eight besides Colyntre himself, and describes him in eulogistic language, “virum in spiritualibus et temporalibus plurimum circumspectum literarum sciencia vita et moribus merito commendandum scientem et valentem jura domus nostrae efficaciter prosequi et tueri quin immo propter vite sue munditiam et excellentiam virtutum apud omnes admodum gratiosum.” It was long before the Fellows were again as completely in harmony upon the choice of their head. Colyntre’s rule lasted till his death in 1385 or 1386.

All through the latter part of the fourteenth century the College was engaged in increasing its scanty endowment, by the purchase, as opportunity offered, of houses, quit-rents, and other property in Oxford, contiguous to or in the neighbourhood of La Oriole. The chantry of St. Mary in the church of St. Michael Southgate, founded by Thomas de la Legh, was annexed to the College in 1357; as was also the chantry of St. Thomas in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in 1392. Other acquisitions were secured by successive licenses in mortmain, granted in 1376, in 1392, and in 1394. In this way the greater part of the ground lying between La Oriole and St. Mary’s Hall was acquired and appropriated to the enlargement of the College buildings and garden.

The name of St. Mary’s College, the legal description of the College, seems to have been little used: the Society is sometimes described as the King’s Hall, or the King’s College, but it was more generally known by the old name of the mansion in which it was lodged. The first instance of the use of the name “Oriel” by the College itself in a formal document is in 1367; but it was no doubt a popular designation at a much earlier date.

In 1373 license was granted by the Bishop for the celebration of masses and other divine offices in a chapel constructed, or to be constructed, within the College. Previous to this the church of St. Mary had been resorted to for all purposes. The legends on the painted glass windows in this chapel, preserved by Wood, record its erection by Richard Earl of Arundel, and by his son Thomas Arundel, about the year 1379.

Next in importance for the society of students which Adam de Brome had founded, after providing them with a house to lodge in, a church or chapel to worship in, and means to maintain them, was books for them to study; and this he had, as he believed, secured in the infancy of the foundation, by acquiring the library which Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, had brought together, and which he had placed in the new building he had erected adjoining St. Mary’s Church. The building and the books placed in it were intended by the Bishop to be made over to the University for the use of all its students; but his intention was frustrated by his premature death; and his executors, finding his estate unequal to the payment of his debts and funeral expenses, were driven to pawn the books for the sum of fifty pounds. Adam de Brome, who, as Rector of the church, had allowed the building to be erected on his ground, pressed for the completion of the Bishop’s undertaking; and the executors, unable otherwise to help him, told him to go in God’s name, and redeem the books and hold them for the use of his College. Acting upon this permission, he redeemed the books, brought them to Oxford, and gave them, with the building which had been built for their reception, to his newly founded Society. This account of the transaction was not acquiesced in by the University; and in the Long Vacation of 1337, five years after Adam de Brome’s death, the Chancellor’s Commissary, at the head of a body of students, made forcible entry into the building, and carried off the books, the few Fellows who were then in residence not daring, as the College plaintively records, to offer any resistance. Thirty years later, proceedings were taken in the Chancellor’s Court to recover possession of the building itself; and notwithstanding an urgent petition of the College imploring the Bishop of Lincoln to interfere on its behalf, the University took possession, and established, in the upper story of what is still known as the Old Congregation House, the nucleus of its first library. The College continued for a long time to assert its claim; and it was not till 1410 that the dispute was finally set at rest. But although disappointed in this quarter, other donors and benefactors rapidly came forward to compensate the College for its loss. Adam de Brome probably gave largely. Master Thomas Cobildik appears in the earliest catalogue as the donor of a considerable part of the then recorded collection. William Rede, Bishop of Chichester, who died in 1385, left ten books to Oriel, and made a similar bequest to most of the then existing Colleges. Provost Daventre, who died in 1373, left the residue of his books to the College. Two Fellows, Elias de Trykyngham and John de Ingolnieles, whose names occur together in a deed of 1356, gave books which are still in the College library. In 1375 a catalogue was compiled, which is still preserved;[134] this comprises about one hundred volumes, arranged according to the divisions of academical study, the Arts, the Philosophies, and lastly, the higher departments of Law—Civil and Canon—and Theology.

The Society for whose use it was intended was still a small one; the number of Fellows remained, as Adam de Brome had left it, at no more than ten. The average tenure of a Fellowship was about ten years. The requirement to proceed to the higher faculties produced little result; either it was disregarded, or the Fellowship was vacated from other causes before the time came for obeying it. By the statutes a vacancy was caused by entering religion, obtaining a valuable benefice, or ceasing to reside and study in the College. Marriage must always have been reckoned as a variety of the last disqualification; and it is especially enumerated in a deed of 1395 reciting the various causes which might bring about the avoidance of a Fellowship.

The Provost, on the other hand, generally held his office till his death. This is the case during the whole of the first century of the College (1326–1425).

Besides the members of the corporate society, room appears to have been found in the Oriole for a few other members, graduates, scholars, bible-clerks, commensales. Thomas Fitzalan, or Arundel, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, is the most eminent name recorded in the fourteenth century.

It is perhaps worth while here to dispose of the claim of the College to be connected with the authorship of Piers Ploughman. The real name of the author of this remarkable poem was, no doubt, William Langlande; but a misunderstanding of a passage in the opening introduction led Stowe hastily to infer that it was written by one John Malverne; and a name something like this, John Malleson, or Malvesonere, occurring as that of one of the Fellows of Oriel in deeds of the year 1387 and subsequently, was sufficient ground for identification. It is enough now to say that the poem was not written by any John Malverne, and that no person of that name was ever Fellow of Oriel; that the only Fellow with a name at all resembling it first appears some time after the date of the poem (c. 1362); and that the internal evidence makes it highly improbable that the writer was ever at any University. There has been, however, this indirect advantage to the College, that, on the ground of its supposed connexion, a valuable MS. of the poem was presented to its library in the seventeenth century, which ranks among the best authorities for the text.

On the death of Provost Colyntre in 1386 began the first of a long series of disputes concerning the election of a head. The Fellows were divided in their choice between Dr. John Middleton, Fellow and Canon of Hereford, and Master Thomas Kirkton. Middleton had the support of five, Kirkton of four of the Fellows. An attempt was made, though whether before or after the election does not clearly appear, to deprive Master Ralph Redruth, B.D., of his Fellowship, though on appeal to the King he succeeded in retaining his place. Kirkton presented himself to the Bishop of Lincoln, and was confirmed. From the Bishop appeal was made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to the King. On the 18th of April, 1386, Letters Patent were issued, ordering two of the Fellows, John Landreyn, D.D., and Master Ralph Redruth, to assume the government of the College, pending the termination of the dispute; and by other letters of May 23rd, the Archbishop, Robert Rugge, Chancellor of the University, and John Bloxham, Warden of Merton, were commissioned to hear the parties and give final judgment and sentence. Under this commission some sentence may have been given in favour of Kirkton, though of this no record has been discovered. At all events the King’s Sergeant-at-arms was ordered, October 26th, to put him in peaceable possession of the Provostship. This order was again, January 4th, 1386–7, revoked by Letters Patent, reciting that Kirkton had before Arundel, then Chancellor and Bishop of Ely, renounced all his claims. Meanwhile the Archbishop had proceeded independently and more slowly. On the 4th of May he had commissioned Master John Barnet, official of the Court of Canterbury, and Master John Baketon, Dean of Arches, to hear Middleton’s appeal; and a like commission to Barnet alone was issued on the 21st of November. Under the last commission sentence was given in favour of Middleton, and an order was sent, 26th February, 1386–7, to the Chancellor of Oxford, and to John Landreyn for his due induction.

Middleton died at Hereford, 27th June, 1394, and was succeeded by John Maldon, M.A., B.M., and Scholar in Divinity, “nuper & in ultimis diebus consocius et conscolaris juratus.” In the record of the election in the Lincoln Register, the names of twelve other Fellows appear as electors. The most important memorial of his period of office now preserved is the Register of College muniments, compiled in 1397, perhaps under the hand of Thomas Leyntwardyn, Fellow, and afterwards Provost. This valuable record consists of a carefully arranged catalogue of all the deeds, charters, and muniments of title then in the College possession. Prefixed to the Register is a Calendar, noting the anniversaries, obits, and other days to be observed in the College in commemoration of its founders and benefactors. Maldon died early in 1401–2. By his will, dated January 21st, he made various bequests to the College, and to individual Fellows. One book, at least, belonging to him is still in the library.

Hitherto the materials for the history of the College have mainly consisted of the title-deeds relating to the property from time to time acquired, the purchases being in the first instance made in the names of a certain number of the Fellows, these again handing it on to some of their successors, until the College felt itself in a position to apply for a license in mortmain to enable it to hold the property in its corporate character. In this way it is possible to make out a tolerably full list of the early members of the College. From about the time of the compilation of the earliest Register, in 1397, this source of information is no longer very productive. Compared with the abundance of deeds of the fourteenth century, which are catalogued in the Register of 1397, the fifteenth century is singularly deficient. Fortunately, however, the want is supplied by other sources of information of more interest. The earliest book of treasurer’s accounts, still preserved, extends from 1409 to 1415. The income of the College was made up of the rents of Oxford houses, about £53; the tithes of its three churches, Aberford, Coleby, and Littlemore, belonging to St. Mary’s, about £35; and the proceeds of offerings in St. Mary’s Church, about £28. The net income, after deducting repairs and other outgoings on property, was between £80 and £90. The principal items of expenses were (1) the commons of the Provost and Fellows, at the rate of 1s. 3d. per week per head; (2) battells, the charge for allowances in meat and drink to other persons employed in and about the College, servants, journeymen, labourers, tilers, and the like, including also the entertainment of College visitors, the clergy of St. Mary’s, or the city authorities; (3) exceedings, “excrescentiae,” the cost incurred on any unusual occasion of College festivity, wine drunk on the feasts of Our Lady, pittances distributed among the members of the College on certain prescribed days, and similar extraordinary expenses. The amounts expended are accurately recorded for each week, the week ending, according to the practice which continues at Oriel to the present day, between dinner and supper on Friday. The total of these charges amounted to about £40. The stipends of the Provost and of the College officers, the payments to the Vicar of St. Mary’s and the four chaplains, the wages of College servants, and the ordinary cost of the College fabric, are the principal other items of expenditure.

In 1410, the long-standing dispute with the University as to Cobham’s library was set at rest, through the mediation of Archbishop Arundel. Not long afterwards a sum of money was raised by contributions from members of the College, and from parishioners of St. Mary’s, for renewing the internal fittings of the church, the University giving £10 pro choro. On the completion of the work, the Chancellor and the whole congregation of regents and non-regents were regaled with wine, at a cost of eight shillings, including oysters for the scrutineers.

It would not be easy to discover in the dry pages of the College accounts, any indication of the domestic quarrels which at this time violently divided the Society. The attempts made by the Archbishop, with the support of the King, to suppress the Lollard doctrines, aroused considerable opposition in the University. In 1395, Pope Boniface IX. had issued a Bull, in answer to a petition from the University, by which the Chancellor was confirmed as the sole authority over all its members, to the exclusion of all archbishops and bishops in England. This Bull, though welcome to the majority of the Congregation, consisting largely of Masters of Arts, was resisted by the higher faculties, and especially by the Canonists; and the King, at the instance of the Archbishop, compelled the University, by the threat of withdrawing all its privileges, to renounce the exemption. Another burning question was the condemnation of the heretical doctrines of Wycliffe. Under considerable pressure from Archbishop Arundel, the University appointed twelve examiners to search Wycliffe’s writings, and extract from them all the erroneous conclusions which deserved condemnation. This task was performed in 1409; but the recalcitrant party among the residents continued to throw considerable difficulty in the way of the Archbishop’s wishes; and Oriel seems to have been an active centre of resistance. In 1411, the Archbishop visited the University, with the double object of asserting his metropolitical authority, which had been threatened by the Papal Bull of exemption, and of crushing out the Lollard heresies. He was not immediately successful; but he had behind him the support of the King, and by the end of the year the obnoxious Bull was revoked, and order was restored. It was probably after this settlement that an enquiry was held at Oriel into the conduct of some of the Fellows who had taken an active part in opposition. William Symon, Robert Dykes, and Thomas Wilton, all Northerners, are charged with being stirrers up and fomenters of discord between the nations; they frequent taverns day and night, they come into College at ten, eleven, or twelve at night, and if they find the gate locked, climb in over the wall. Wilton wakes up the Provost from his sleep, and challenges him to come out and fight. On St. Peter’s Eve, 1411, when the College gate was shut by the Provost’s order, he went out with his associates, attacked the Chancellor in his lodgings, and slew a scholar who was within. One witness deposed to seeing him come armed into St. Mary’s Church, and when his sword fell out of his hand, crying out, “There wyl nothing thryve wyt me.” In support of the charge that Oriel College suffered in reputation by reason of the misbehaviour of its Fellows, Mr. John Martyll, then Fellow, deposes that many burgesses of Oxford and the neighbourhood are minded to confiscate the College lands, rents, and tenements. Upon these general charges of domestic misconduct, follow others against Symon and against Master John Byrche of more public importance. Byrche was Proctor in 1411, and Symon in 1412.[135] Both appear to have taken an active part in opposing the attempt of the Chancellor and the Archbishop to correct the ecclesiastical and doctrinal heresies of the University. Byrche as Proctor contrived to carry in the Great Congregation a proposal to suspend the power of the twelve examiners appointed to report on Wycliffe’s heresies; and when the Chancellor met this by dissolving the Congregation, Byrche next day summoned a Small Congregation, and obtained the appointment of judges to pronounce the Chancellor guilty of perjury, and by this means frightened him into resigning his office. When the Archbishop arrived for his visitation, Byrche and Symon held St. Mary’s Church against him, and setting his interdict at naught, they opened the doors, rang the bells, and celebrated high mass. When summoned in their place in College to renounce the Papal Bull of Exemption, they declined to follow the example of their elders and betters, and flatly refused to comply.

Upon these charges a number of witnesses were examined; some, possibly townsmen, giving evidence as to the disturbances in the streets between the Northern and Southern nations; others, notably John Possell, the Provost, Mr. John Martyll, and Mr. Henry Kayll, Fellows, Mr. Nicholas Pont, and Mr. John Walton, speaking to the occurrences in College and in the Convocation House. It does not seem that any very serious results followed from the inquiry; Symon, and a young bachelor Fellow, Robert Buckland, against whom no specific charge was made, confessed themselves in fault; as to the others, nothing more is recorded. A number of further charges were prepared against a still more important member of the College, the Dean, John Rote (or Root), who by his connivance, and by his refusal to support the Provost’s authority, made himself partaker in the misconduct of the younger Fellows, and was justly held to be the “root” of all the evil. Such was the weight of his character in College, that none would venture to go against his opinion; his refusing to interfere, his sitting still and saying nothing when these enormities were reported to the Provost, was a direct encouragement to the offenders. At other times, in Hall, and in the company of the Fellows, he uttered the rankest Lollardism. “Are we to be punished with an interdict on our church for other people’s misdoings? Truly it shall be said of the Archbishop, ‘The devil go with him and break his neck.’ The Archbishop would better take care what he is about. He tried once before to visit the University, and was straightway proscribed the realm. I have heard him say, ‘Do you think that Bishop beyond the sea’—meaning the Pope—‘is to give away my benefices in England? No, by St. Thomas.’ ” What was this but the battle-cry of the new sect, “Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us”? But no evidence was offered on these charges, and Root remained undisturbed in his College eminence.

Possell, who is stated to have been sixty years of age at the time of the commission of enquiry, seems to have died in September 1414; and the proceedings which followed further illustrate the divided condition of the College. A prominent candidate for the Provostship was Rote, already conspicuous for his outspoken Lollardism, and who, by his adversaries’ own admissions, was of far more weight and influence in the College than the old and timid Provost. An election was held, seemingly in the following October, at which he was chosen; and he obtained confirmation from the Bishop of Lincoln on November 17th. But the validity of the proceedings was at once contested by Mr. John Martyll, one of the Fellows, on the ground of want of notice; and Rote’s claim to the office was kept in suspense, pending an appeal to Rome. From the College accounts, the payments due to the Provost seem to have been made to Rote, under a salvo, pending the appeal. Archbishop Courtenay, who had lately succeeded Arundel, interfered, and summoned the parties before him at Lambeth, where on 14th February, 1415, Rote renounced his claims. A new election took place, at which Dr. William Corffe was chosen; and he was confirmed by the Bishop of Lincoln, on the 16th of March following, by John Martyll, his proxy. He appears then to have been absent from England, representing the University at the Council of Constance. From this embassy he perhaps never returned; the proceedings of the Council record him as present in June 1415; and a note in a MS. in the College library states that he died at Constance. His name occurs as Provost in a deed dated 14th May, 1416; and he is mentioned as “in remotis agens” 3rd April, 1417. His death may be presumed to have occurred about September 1417.

The period from 1429 to 1476, during which the College was under the rule of its four great provosts—John Carpenter, Walter Lyhert, John Hals, and Henry Sampson—was one of exceptional brilliance and prosperity. Hitherto the College had been one of the most slenderly endowed; but during this period a stream of benefactions flowed in upon it, which materially altered its position. The first and most considerable addition which it received was the legacy of John Frank, Master of the Rolls, who left the sum of £1000 for the support of four additional Fellows. The money was judiciously invested in the purchase of the Manor of Wadley, near Faringdon, once the property of the Abbey of Stanley, Wilts, and which had lately been forfeited to the Crown. This property was acquired in 1440, and the statute providing for the enlargement of the Foundation is dated 13th May, 1441. The adjoining estate of Littleworth was purchased some time later by Hals, then Bishop of Lichfield, and also given to the College. The manors of Dene and Chalford,[136] in the parishes of Spelsbury and Enstone, Oxon, were acquired by Carpenter, who had become Bishop of Worcester in 1443, and were given by his will to the College, for the support of a Fellow from the diocese of Worcester. Somewhat later William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards one of the founders of Brasenose College, founded another Fellowship for his own diocese, and endowed the College with the manor of Shenington, near Banbury. The last considerable addition to the College property was made by Richard Dudley, sometime Fellow, who in 1525 gave the manor of Swainswick, near Bath, to maintain two Fellows. The whole of these new endowments, which exceed many times over the value of the original possessions of the College, were acquired in a period of less than a hundred years, and they are the lasting memorial of what until recent times must be considered the most splendid period in the College history.

By these benefactions the number of Fellows, fixed at ten in the Foundation Statutes, was raised to eighteen, at which it remained down to the changes of recent times. Four of these, founded by John Frank, were to be chosen out of the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon; one, founded by Bishop Carpenter, from the diocese of Worcester; and one, founded by Bishop Smyth, from the diocese of Lincoln. The two Fellowships founded by Dudley were not made subject to any restriction; but the College bound itself, in acknowledgment of Carpenter’s benefaction, to assign one of the original Fellowships also to the diocese of Worcester. This provision was repealed in 1821. There were therefore from the reign of Henry VIII. onwards seven Fellowships limited in the first instance to certain counties and dioceses, and eleven which were subject to no restriction. And there never grew up at any time any class of junior members of the Foundation, entitled by statute or custom to succeed to Fellowships, or indeed any class whatever, corresponding to the scholars, postmasters or demies, to be found at most other Colleges. Certain Exhibitions were indeed established by Bishop Carpenter and Bishop Lyhert, and charged upon lands given by them to St. Anthony’s Hospital in London. Others, again, were founded by Richard Dudley. But neither the Exhibitions of St. Anthony nor the Dudley Exhibitions ever grew to the least importance. The small stipends originally assigned to them were never increased; and with the change in the value of money, they sank into complete insignificance.

New statutes to regulate these additions to the Foundation were enacted in 1441, 1483, and in 1507. From another statute in 1504 dates the establishment of the College Register, which thenceforward becomes the sole authentic record of the history of the College. This Register is directed to be kept not by the Provost, but by the Dean; and a similar practice was established about the same time in several other Colleges, such as Merton, where the Register begins in 1482, Magdalen, Brasenose, and others. It was probably thought that the duty would be better discharged by a subordinate officer, who could be called to account by his superior, than by the Head himself, whose negligence it was no one person’s business to correct. The Oriel Register, though first instituted by the statute of 1504, contains also the record of some transactions of earlier date; and the statute was probably intended to put upon a regular footing a practice which had already begun, and which was found to be of service. If this Register had been employed as the statute directed, in recording “omnia acta et decreta, per Praepositum et Scholares capitulariter facta,” it would be invaluable for the history of the College; but unfortunately the tendency soon showed itself to confine the entries to a limited number of cases, such as the elections and admissions of the Provost and Fellows, and to leave unnoticed many matters belonging to the ordinary daily life of the Society, for the insertion of which no exact precedent was found. When at a later time the character of the College changed from a small Society of graduate students to an educational institution, receiving undergraduate members, scarcely any notice is to be discovered in the Register which betrays the existence of tutors or pupils, or of any other members of the Society besides the Provosts and Fellows.

Another important source of information is the series of Treasurer’s accounts, known as the Style. These begin in 1450, almost immediately after the election of Provost Sampson, and the plan then introduced, of which he may possibly have been the author, has lasted in unbroken continuity to the present time. For some time this account records the whole of the pecuniary transactions of the College; but after the act of Elizabeth (18 Eliz. c. 6) came into operation, and the surplus revenue of each year became divisible among the Provost and Fellows, the practice soon established itself of excluding from both sides of the account items of a novel or exceptional character. The rents of the College estates are given in the fullest detail; but no mention is made of the fines taken on the renewal of leases, although these began very early to form an important part of the College revenue. The whole of the domestic side of the account, the charges upon members outside the Foundation, and the cost of their maintenance, the fees paid by undergraduates to tutors and College officers, servants’ wages, and other similar items, are nowhere noticed. When in the seventeenth century the whole fabric of the College was pulled down and rebuilt, it would be difficult to find in the pages of the Style any entry which would give a hint that any unusual outlay was in progress.

The century which followed the resignation of Provost Sampson in 1475, presents very little of general interest. At the visitation of the College by Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1520, among other matters of minor consequence, occurs the first recorded instance of an abuse which was probably then and for long afterwards not unfrequent. Thomas Stock had resigned his Fellowship in favour of John Throckmorton, keeping back his resignation until he was sure that Throckmorton would be elected. “Hoc potest trahi in exemplum perniciosum. Ita quod in posterum socii resignabunt loca sua quibus voluerint. Dominus injunxit ne deinceps aliquis talia faceret in electionibus ibidem.” The Injunctions of Bishop Longland, following on his visitation in 1531, seem to show a growing laxity of discipline. The Provost, then Thomas Ware, is admonished to be personally resident in the College, and to attend more diligently to his duties. The Bachelors are to observe the regular hours of study in the library at night, and not to introduce strangers into their sleeping-rooms. The new classical learning (“recentiores literae, lingua Latina, et opera poetica”) is not to be pursued to the prejudice of the older studies, the “Termini Doctorum antiquorum.” The disputations and exercises are to be kept up as in former times; the Provost, Dean, and senior masters are to attend the disputations, and to be ready to solve the doubtful points. No Fellow is to go out of residence without the leave of the Provost or the Dean, and then only for a limited time, whether in term or vacation. The vacant Fellowships are to be filled up in a month’s time, and no Fellowship to remain vacant in future longer than one month.

Fifteen years later another set of Injunctions was issued by the same Bishop. The Fellows are again enjoined to be diligent in their studies, giving themselves to philosophy for three years following their admission, and then going on to divinity. The unseemly behaviour of Mr. Edmund Crispyne calls for special reprimand; he is to give up blasphemy and profane swearing; he is not to let his beard grow, or to wear plaited shirts, or boots of a lay cut; he is to be respectful and obedient to the Provost and Dean, on pain of excommunication and deprivation of his Fellowship. Mention is made of St. Mary Hall as a place of education under the control of the College, but distinct from it. The door opening from the College into the Hall is to be walled up, and no communication between the two to be allowed henceforth. The College is to appoint a fit person to be Principal of the Hall, who is to provide suitable lectures for the instruction of the students there.

The Reformation makes but little mark in the recorded history of the College. No difficulty was met with by the King’s Commissioner, Dr. Cox, when he came in 1534 to require the acknowledgment of the Royal supremacy. Four years later came the orders for depriving Becket of the honours of saintship, and for removing his name from all service-books. The thoroughness with which these orders were carried out is remarkably illustrated at Oriel, where even in so obscure a place as the Calendar prefixed to the Register of College Muniments, the days marked for the observance of St. Thomas have been carefully obliterated. There was, however, one member of Oriel, Edward Powell, who distinguished himself by his opposition to the King’s policy. He had been Fellow of the College from about 1495 to 1505; afterwards he became Canon of Salisbury, and also held other ecclesiastical preferments. On the first appearance of Luther’s writings he was selected by the University as one of the defenders of orthodoxy, and recommended as such to the King. When, however, the question of the King’s divorce arose, Powell was retained by Queen Katherine as her ablest advocate; and from that time he was conspicuous by his resistance to the King. In 1540 he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield for denying the Royal supremacy, and for refusing to take the oath of succession.

In the pages of the College Register the affairs of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital play a much more important part than any changes in religion. It was in 1536 that the long-standing dispute between the College and the City respecting the payment appropriated to the support of the almsmen was finally settled. The charge, £23 0s. 5d., out of the fee farm rent of the town, had been granted by Henry I. on the first establishment of the Hospital; but ever since the annexation to the College by Edward III., great difficulty had been experienced in obtaining punctual payment. Charters confirming the charge had been obtained from nearly every sovereign through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but the City persevered in disputing its liability. In 1536 both parties agreed to stand to the award of two Barons of the Exchequer, and by their decision the payment was settled at the reduced amount of £19 a year, and the nomination of the almsmen was transferred to the city.

On the resignation of Provost Haynes in 1550, the King’s Council endeavoured to procure the election of Dr. William Turner, a prominent Protestant divine, honourably known as one of the fathers of English Botany. The Fellows, perhaps anticipating interference, held their election on the day of Haynes’ resignation, and chose Mr. John Smyth, afterwards Margaret Professor of Divinity. Smyth was promptly despatched to the Bishop of Lincoln for confirmation, and on his return to the College was duly installed Provost. Some days afterwards the Dean was summoned to attend the Council and to give an account of the College proceedings. His explanations were apparently accepted, and no further action was taken. Smyth retained his place through all the changes of religion under Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. On his resignation in 1565, Roger Marbeck of Christchurch, and Public Orator, was chosen, although not statutably qualified, having never been a Fellow. It is possible, though not hinted at in the account of the election, that he was recommended either by the Queen or by some other powerful personage; and a dispensation was obtained from the Visitor authorising a departure from the regulations of the Statutes. Marbeck held the office only two years, and was succeeded by John Belly, Provost 1566 to 1574.